


If I Could Fly Home

by lighthouselarrie



Category: One Direction
Genre: F/M, I dunno how to tag, M/M, canon i think, first fic ever, help me lol, im trying to write, larry is real, pls be nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 13:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5335040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lighthouselarrie/pseuds/lighthouselarrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry had always loved high places and used them as an escape, but Harry knows he had always needed somebody to hold him down just in case he drifts away and gets lost inside himself.</p><p>Harry needs his anchor.</p><p>And Louis Tomlinson has always been Harry's anchor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Could Fly Home

**Author's Note:**

> first fic ever please be nice i'm trying and it's unfinished yet so... hope this goes well or maybe i'll just whip up another

Hot air balloons.  
Rollercoasters.  
Ferris wheels.  
Bell towers.  
Bridges.  
Clock towers.  
Airplanes.  
Buildings.  
Rooftops.  
Mountains.  
Lighthouses.  
On stage.

High places making problems look smaller. Escaping. Feeling large and at the same time insignificant. It's all very ironic.

Harry just misses him too much that Harry actually makes an effort to avoid him. Just to save himself from falling even harder. It's funny, Harry thinks, how somebody's existence can cause ripple effects and alter his life altogether. It's magical, and at the same time, cruel.

At the busiest of times, Harry finds himself laughing at something incredibly funny and Harry just wants to text, or even call him up because Harry knows he'll get it. And he's gonna be laughing with Harry. And that fucking sucks, Harry thinks. Because he has to deal with life controlling himself to keep his emotions in. Just contain them in a hypothetical bottle and seal it shut. Maybe throw it away in the deepest ocean in his mind and just let it drift there. But that's the thing, isn't it? He is always at the back of Harry's mind.

Sometimes, a little thing slips in his thoughts and Harry immediately associates it with him. And Harry thinks it's so fucking cruel, to the point where he just wants to stop thinking because every time he thinks about something, Harry always ends up thinking about him anyway. Everything comes down to him.

And it's never stopped.

And Harry is scared that he won't find somebody like him, that will have the same impact to him, or much less a greater impact to him. Harry is absolutely terrified that nobody's gonna compare to him. He is scared that he's not gonna find somebody else better than him. Because hell, face it, he's the best person ever. Fate knows it.

The year is ending and Harry thought he was over this. Harry thought he was over everything that happened to him when he was 16. Harry thought he was over the boy who knew him better than anybody else. Harry thought he was over the boy who was always, always, always there for him despite being busy with life. With their life. The boy who saw through his exterior. The boy who tore down his walls. The boy who built bridges for him and introduced him to all the great things Harry has grown to love now.

Harry wants to tell this boy that he's a fucking idiot waiting for nothing. Harry wants to tell this boy that he can't bring myself to talk to him or look him in the eye without looking like he's begging. Harry might cry. Harry has always been crying. Harry hasn't stopped crying.

Because it will always be him, no matter what Harry does to change it. No matter how hard Harry tries to convince himself that he's over it, Harry knows deep down that his heart will always belong to the boy he met when he was 16 and drifting, looking for an anchor.

Harry had always loved high places and used them as an escape, but Harry knows he had always needed somebody to hold him down just in case he drifts away and gets lost inside himself. Harry needs his anchor.

And Louis Tomlinson has always been Harry's anchor.

 

***  
2010, 23rd July

Harry's heart is pounding against his chest. He can't make out his emotions. He can't tell between fear and disappointment anymore. He was worried sick, he thought he had it. He thought he could make it. 

His thoughts were flooding in his mind, his brain cells trying to form coherent words but somehow he only manages to produce even more tears. He wishes he could stop crying in front of all this people. But he can't. He is very angry with himself.

Harry had always hoped for the best. Harry had prepared a back-up plan just in case he doesn't make it through the cut. He was going to study, of course.

But he had made it this far. And it just fucking sucks not to hear his name called out and he just wants to hug his mother. See his family. Climb up the stairwell and stare up at the grey sky from the rooftops.

Just to find a little light, maybe.

"Harry Styles?" a man called out.

He had no idea what was happening. His head was spinning a bit. He kept thinking. Maybe he was going to get interviewed. He just assumed that the crew might be toying with him more just to make a proper show off the telly. But the next thing he knew, he was being led back onstage by this man, along with four other familiar boys. 

He was very much familiar with the boy with the red beanie on. He met that boy in the loo, gave Harry some encouragement, and had asked for an autograph. Which was undeniably a bit quirky. But Harry did not seem to mind. That boy was nice, anyway. Their eyes met, both showing hints of crying. Harry did not know why he felt sorry for him, too.

His name was-

"Louis Tomlinson," a crew member said. She was reading their names from a list on the clipboard she was holding. "Liam Payne, Zain Malik," she continued, "Niall Horan and Harry Styles?"

The five boys all shared a confused look. She led them up the stairs with a smile on her face, "The judges want to have a word."

Harry did not think for the sake of his life, that whatever the judges were going to say, would change the course of it altogether.

 

***  
2015, 31st July

Drag Me Down broke the record for the fastest-selling single of their whole career. Five years of it, and Harry felt happy. At least he thinks he is.

"Mate, we should go have a night out again tonight! Celebrate!" Niall jumped from his bed, surprisingly still grabbing a hold of his beer that he got from the mini fridge under the telly.

"I'm knackered, Niall. I don't even know where the bloody hell you got all your energy from." Harry was bundled up in a blanket, laying in his bed, on his phone, checking in on Twitter. It was ten in the evening and he's exhausted. He was not in the mood.

"Styles, come on! Stop being such a twat, we broke a record for fuck's sake! Let's get plastered!"

Harry shuffled in his bed and stared at Niall intently, trying to make him understand. Niall always understood, he knows this, but he also knows how excited Niall gets when things like these happen. But Harry just can't bring himself to get into the party vibe tonight. Not after what had transpired during the past month. 

Harry parted his lips to say, "Ask Li-"

"I have asked him ya cunt! I texted and he said he wants to go but of course you need to be there. Quit moping in hotel rooms, mate. You deffo need a night out."

Harry scrunched his nose in disgust, "I deffo do not mope in hotel rooms, Niall." He makes a dramatic pause, "I cause trouble in hotel rooms." He smirked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Niall lets out a chuckle. "Well then I need a night out, 'm not staying in 'ere and have a listen at your lame puns."

Harry flashes a victory smile at Niall, "D'you think we should release that song next as a single?"

"Yeah, 'course. Have to ask a third opinion from your co-writer though." He said and continued to drink from his beer. But as soon as Niall saw something flash in Harry's face, he almost choked. "I mean, if it's fine. Is it?"

Harry blinked at him, "Yeah... of course, yeah. Ask him."

It's alright, Harry thought. After all, they wrote it together.

"Haz," Niall started, "I reckon you should go talk to him, he is just having as hard as a time as you are."

He sighed. Niall only speaks the truth. Niall placed his now empty beer bottle on the bedside table and walked over to Harry's bed. He plopped down beside Harry as Harry moved aside to make space for him.

"I don't think..." Harry started as he puts his phone down. "It's kind of, difficult, you know. The situation we are in. I don't have any fucking idea how to start the conversation anymore."

"That's 'cause you think it too much, mate." Niall looked down on him.

"Things have changed since... you know. I can't... maybe if-"

"You only think that, but..." Niall's face showed hesitation. He fumbled through his sweatpants and took his phone out from his back pocket, "Haz, he's written a song."

With that, Harry's mind went silent. He knew what Niall meant, so he stared at him long enough to make him suggest.

"Maybe you should give it a listen." Niall finally shuffled through his phone while taking his earbuds out of his other pocket and handed them to Harry. "Here, I'll play it for you."

Harry nervously puts Niall's earbuds on and stays quiet as Niall plugs them and taps the play button.

 

***  
2011 September. Leeds Festival.

It was so dark already as if the sun didn't set ten minutes ago.

"Where the fuck is he?" Harry asked Paige, a girl they met while dancing to The Wombats this evening. Paige claimed to be a fan of theirs, but Harry scoffed at the idea thinking that they haven't even done anything yet to consider having fans. Or maybe he would just never get used to the attention and the fame.

He felt like there was always a price to pay for it.

Paige was a bit tipsy, but she could still form coherent thoughts. "I have no bloody idea, Harry. He was just here a moment ago but when I looked behind me, he's just disappeared! Ha!" She was laughing, so she was the happy kind of drunk, and her face was flushed red. But so was Harry.

Yet Harry can't seem to see clearly through the dark and the sporadic appearances of blinding flashlights. Until one particular flashlight was shooting up straight at his face.

"Harry, there you are! I've been looking everywhere!"

Harry recognizes the voice anywhere but he still squints his eyes and tries to make out the face behind the flashlight, not letting the alcohol in his blood get the best of his consciousness. And it's the first thing he sees.

The color of the sky and the sea, mixing inside the pair of eyes squinting back at him. 

***  
2010 March.

Harry wants a change in his life. He wants to go away immediately, travel on his own, perhaps.

He just wants to feel free.

But at sixteen years of age, he doesn't think he can manage yet. But he still tries to escape. If that.

Harry's definition of escaping involves going up high places.

Harry had always loved being in high places. He felt like he held the whole world at his feet, yet he also felt like he was nearest to the sky and maybe he wants to drift away some time.


End file.
